Doctors and nurses at Brooke Army Hospital in San Antonio, Texas in the coming weeks are going to be opening colorful cards made by over 1,000 elementary school students from the Mohawk Valley.
They will sit down and read a message which could only have been composed through the honest perspective of a child. And hopefully, the simple gesture will remind the men and women of the far-reaching impact of the daily miracles they perform.
This is exactly the kind of deed the late Sgt. Merlin German encouraged in the time he spent at the hospital.
His story of fortitude stands as just one of those miracles.
Six schools conducted the thank you card project in Sgt. German’s memory as part of the Fallen Stars Memorial Committee’s focus on honoring soldiers who died while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan,
German died three years after overcoming severe burns which resulted from an improvised explosive device attack, according to Ray Lenarcic, committee chair.
But Merlin’s positive spirit in his final years caused doctors to cast him as the one responsible for cheering up all the other injured soldiers at the hospital. German became an inspirational figure nationally, and even started Merlin’s Miracle to raise funds for children burn victims.
The card project leaned on this “symbol of courage” to “teach young people what they could achieve,” Lenarcic added.
Susan Butler, principal at Dolgeville Elementary School, said the teachers used the project in lessons for all subjects. From making the cards in art to showing the distance between the U.S. and Middle East on a map in social studies.
Yet another valuable experience came in the form of the project’s main goal. The building of a relationship between those serving the country and the students whose futures they protect.
“I’m sure some will make them laugh,” said Tammy Roorda, an art teacher at Benton Hall Academy in Little Falls.
She said one card contained an innocent spelling mistake of a 5-year-old author who wanted to make a connection.
The student wrote “I have an ant who is a nurse,” said Roorda. “They’re going to love it.”
And the kids are anxiously awaiting to possibly hear back from their “pen pals,” she added.
But the messages also taught the students about the realities of the military.
“I just think they wanted them to be able to go home. Students wrote ‘I feel bad that [the soldiers] don’t have Christmas like we do,” Roorda said.
Butler echoed Roorda’s take on the project, “Some of the cards will just make them smile, and others might make them cry...kids really are writing the way they feel.”
For many of the kids the cards became very personal as fathers, brothers, sisters, and relatives are serving in the military.
Butler said an example was provided by a student who wrote, “Thank you for saving lives. I wouldn’t want my dad to die.”
Any extra cards will be sent to combat doctors and nurses in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Lenarcic. “The unsung heroes of these wars.”
Herkimer, N.Y. —
